Motilal Nehru

Motilal Nehru (6 May 1861-6 February 1931) was President of the Indian National Congress from 1919 to 1920 and from 1928 to 1929. He was also the patriarch of the Nehru-Gandhi family, and Jawaharlal Nehru was his son.

Biography
Motilal Nehru was born in Agra, British India in 1861, and he studied law and built up an enormously successful legal practice in Allahabad. Politically active since the imprisonment of Annie Besant in 1917, he joined his son, Jawaharlal Nehru, in Mahatma Gandhi's 1920-1922 non-cooperation movement. When the Indian National Congress declined into inactivity during the 1920s, together with C.R. Das he organized the Swaraj Party in early 1923, which was recognized by the INC as its political wing in 1925. It gained a majority in the Central Legislative Assembly, as well as in some provincial assemblies, though despite his very able leadership, he found it difficult to exercise much influence upon the colonial administration. He devised the Nehru Report of 1928 and presided over the important INC Calcutta Congress of 1928, where Gandhi achieved a compromise in demanding Dominion status within one year, and independence if this was not granted. He took part in Gandhi's Salt March in 1930, when he was arrested. He was released shortly before his death.